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[Rohka]

1st Day of Winter

This was a moment and there may be no going back.

They'd spoken a bit, before, having shared space, about the future. They knew things had to change, and it was obvious to them both that the pace of everything here... just didn't match expectations.

Rohka looked out at the ocean, grateful. Seawater waves, salty air, swinging bare feet, tippy toes gently touching the water. She wondered for some period of illusory moments about the deepness of the ocean. The creatures who called it home. She found herself and her mind daydreaming about the play they'd watched together. Delmaria, wasn't it?

That time together.

That instant their eyes met.

How simple it was, between them.

Yet did they really know each other enough?

Did it matter?

Rohka had been living here, blind to the truths of her path forward. Without Markham around, everyday was like the same day, over and over again, in a sort of daze she knew was probably unhealthy for her.

With Caspian though... there was meaning.

The sybil saw Syna's rays glittering, and she turned her head to take in the views of the mountain. How tall they were. A fear crept up within her and she shook slightly. She decided to shed her layers and just focus on her happiness here. Her ability to live and breathe should be enough, shouldn't it?

Maybe it wasn't, for Caspian.

He probably needed more than just breathing.

Rohka dipped herself gently in the water, having been on the edge of a small space for fishing boats off to the side of the main dock. She ignored the curious looks from passersby and just savored the feeling of the salt water on her skin.

Letting go of the dock, she felt herself sinking, and it almost brought her heart out of her chest before she held on again, to the planks of the dock.

Swimming should be easy, right?

Rohka wiped the water from her face and looked around, reminding herself that she was waiting for him. They'd agreed to talk before he would... make a choice? Move on? What was it exactly, she wondered, about what he wanted to do? What was it that bothered her?

Nothing, she resolved, in her adamant state of being. The sybil felt as fine as the fish in the sea, being here, with the client base she was building up. Lelia had been fine with her means of gathering information so far, and her work was what mattered to sustain herself here. Not to mention the next step in the...

She couldn't even begin to think about Krishveth right now.

No, her mind was on Caspian. The man she thought she knew.

Rohka sunk below the surface once again, pushing herself away form the dock. This time, she tried to relax. She didn't care what happened next. Would she drown?

No. She resolved that she wouldn't.

Not when she had faith.

Though it had become harder for her to define what she had faith in. She ignored the thought and just chose to make her mind know that she would swim.

She pushed her feet out under her and felt herself begin to lift up. Holding her breath, she floated, on her front, for just a few moments, before gently sinking her feet back and holding onto the edge.

Her face was above the water now. She pushed her hair back with her free hand, breathed in deeply, and looked out to the dock...

Hoping to find him there...

...eventually.

Boxcode credit to Antipodes

[Caspian]

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Though Caspian’s come this way many times before, he takes the wrong turn. The docks are to the east, and the positioning of the sun above him should have been his first clue, but his thoughts are half-formed and disconnected, and he follows an instinct that proves vastly incorrect. The next turn he takes is a parallel move, which at least isn’t a step back, but doesn’t very much help the fact that he’s terribly late.

It’s not the mis-manuevering that’s made him late, though. He knows it, was well aware when it was happening, as he repeatedly pulled his jacket on and off and paced his shared attic room with only one shoe. The clock had ticked loudly, and downstairs the grandfather clock at one point chimed, indicating that it was the hour that he was supposed to be at the meeting point he had set, and not still working himself up into a frenzy in the compact space he slept in with his sister.

Every time he took the jacket off and put it back on, the magical properties of his impossible suit kicked in and it transformed. It was the fabric at first, all of it, dramatic shifts from ruby to cerulean and at one point, a yellowish-green that could only be the magic’s ribbing him for the nausea he felt welling up inside. And then, as if it were tired, or more likely, fed up with his shkye, the changes became so subtle as to almost be missed. Just a different width to the lapels, one or more buttons on the sleeves. As if it had any self-respect, his trousers never changed, stayed inky black with their simple single pleats, as plainly stubborn as his shoes.

A week prior something had possessed him to unroll Akvin’s painting and hang it on the wall. Until now he’s resisted doing so, simply because – something about decorating a space was a way of claiming ownership, and this cottage, nor this city, were at all his in title or feeling or deed. Like the magical suit, the painting tells him the things he should already know – the landscape turning rocky and gray, the waves rising up in full froth and threatening to swallow up the shore.

The truth is that though this whole thing had been his idea, he’s nervous.

And subsequently, all morning he had been stalling.

But he’s finally out on the streets now, mustered up what might have been called courage and taken off for the meeting point. When he gets there she’s nowhere to be seen, and his heart sinks.

It’s his fault, he thinks immediately – this had been a farfetched idea to begin with and not only had he made the error of presenting it to her, he’d also made a series of choices that resulted in his not even showing up on time.

Well.

This is as good as an answer outright, he supposes.

Leaning against the railing and gazing out at the watery horizon, he notes, distantly, that his magical suit has him in deepest navy. And as if in concession, in apology, or perhaps just pity, it’s changed his trousers and shoes after all. All of him from head to toe is blue. Were he to dip into the waters, he’d be hard pressed to find. Just as he reaches into his pocket for his tobacco, he notices that everyone around him is sort of – staring at something, and that there’s movement in the water right before the dock.

“Rohka?” he blurts out, hastily shoving his vices back into his jacket. “What in the world are you – gods, come up before something, I don’t know, eats you?”

He doesn’t actually know what flora and fauna are around this part of the continent, but he’ll just go ahead and assume the worst.

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[Rohka]

How was it that one could feel freer in the water than on land?

Rohka pushed the thought away and laughed lightly at Caspian's reaction, her cheeks reddening and her damp hair just stuck on her form. She didn't think about whatever would be in the water. She was here, where he'd wanted to meet, and she was sure they would talk about something.

She'd been here in Zeltiva for quite some time, quietly doing her business while spending moments with Caspian on the rare occasion that he also wished to share space with her.

Did any of that time really even matter if he was going to leave?

Rohka ignored the deeper self inquiry and decided to keep up her usually questioning nature, firing back at the man with a simpler query.

"What took you so long?" she asked, still smiling.

She didn't really expect an answer immediately, so the sybil kept going.

"The water feels so good, you know. I haven't learned to swim but I figured I could just put myself in here and figure it out on my own. I guess I didn't really think about any creatures that could consider me to be food. Am I really in danger out here?" She looked out into the distance, seeing fisherman up to their hips in water, throwing nets out.

"If they can do that, and they don't seem scared, why should I be worried? Besides, I had to keep myself busy, waiting for you. Though I don't even really know what I'm waiting for, to be fair." She was losing her grip on the dock and so she let go.

She felt herself get heavy and sink... and somehow, it was comforting for a moment before something shocked her system, a fear creeping in, and she thrashed her arms. It was her tail that helped the most, she realized. As it moved back and forth underwater, she floated back up, coughed a bit, and pushed the water out of her eyes, holding the edge again. The sybil felt far more alive now.

She grinned at Caspian.

"Woops. I'm fine here, see? It's fun and I'm learning. Never know when I'll be thrown overboard for something I did, and knowing me, it'll be for something like telling someone a fortune they hated hearing," she joked darkly, chuckling.

One of the things she remembered fondly about the man was his declaration, the first time they met, that he would rise only for fun. Another was that it was with him that she first questioned whether the Gods were always in the right. A vague memory of Rhysol crept into her mind, and she felt a wish to pray, silently, to all of the Gods that had any hand in her safe arrival here.

Being alive meant a lot.

Being conscious, even more so.

Rohka's eyes darkened, knowing that she never wanted to be kept in the kind of sickness that she was stuck in when she'd first arrived.

Seeing Caspian's face in her vision, she turned away, looking far out to the horizon as she spoke aloud once more.

"Caspian, why are we here? The Docks... don't get me wrong, I'm glad I'm here. I actually don't remember the last time I was here. I was unconscious when I arrived, and my guide, Markham, took me away to help me heal. I found it difficult to get here, since I didn't know where I was going. I had to ask around. I got lost a few times too, but the people here are friendly enough. So, I don't know, I'm just curious..." she paused and looked at him.

"Why are we here instead of someplace we've been before?"

Boxcode credit to Antipodes

[Caspian]

x

He doesn’t say this out loud, but she looks like a dream he once had. And in that dream he had been swimming too, but without effort or exertion, treading water in a blue-gray sea, beneath an even grayer sky. The waters went on endlessly around him, as featureless and formless as the sky above, with no land in sight. And in the water beside him appeared a woman, her hair long and dark and matted back the way Rohka’s is now, her features just as sharp. They said nothing to each other; he didn’t feel the need to, though dimly his conscious mind wondered where she had come from. In the dream he had not been afraid of her. Surely she possessed powers that he didn’t, for she had transported herself there so seamlessly. If he searched, he might have found gills. But he was at peace there in the water beside her, if it could be called that, wanting and fearing nothing.

But this is not that dream, for here Rohka smiles and patters, and still he carries the healthy worry about what might be lurking in Zeltiva’s depths.

The other reason for his being late, aside from his fretting and pacing at home, rests heavily in his right pocket, against his hip.

As to their being here –

“I wanted you to know exactly where to find me, the next time I ask you to come.”

But that response, he knows, is only going to invite a dozen more questions. He only hopes he can supply at least as many answers.

“Sorry - hold on a tick,” he says, for he doesn’t like that he’s craning his head, physically looking down to speak to her, when this is a conversation they should be having at eye level, if not her above him. Further down the dock, the way he’d come, is a vendor selling baubles and colored glass and – yes. He’d remembered that correctly. Rolls of scarves and shawls and other, heavier textiles. Through a hasty exchange with the vendor, he comes away with a roll of ramie, then returns to Rohka. “Darling, I’m sorry I was late. I’ll tell you why in a moment, but – will you please come up?” He holds out the swath of fabric.

“Do you remember the fortune you read me?” he says when she finally pulls herself up onto the dock and dries herself off. “You’ve been right so far, about everything. It’s taken me so many seasons to figure out what would make me happy. I did end up sticking around in Ravok longer than anyone anticipated. And…”

Bask in contemplation under the sun.

For what he’s about to ask her, that one had really been spelled out.

If only all fortunes were so straightforward.

“I mentioned a while ago, that I’m leaving Zeltiva, that all my family is in Sunberth, that ever since Taalviel came back into my life, all she’s been angling to do is get me to return. I know I’ve given you all the many reasons why that was the last thing I ever wanted to do, but – “ This part isn’t as hard to say out loud as it used to be. “Things changed. I changed. And I think, at the end of all things, Sunberth is where I belong. Ravok was a game, a costume. One long masquerade. Zeltiva was a test. And now-“

Breaking off, he glances out at the water. If he were to swim out, go so far he couldn’t see the Zeltivan Bay, would he find the silent woman from his dream? Is she out there waiting?

In his pocket, the box is rigid, conclusive in its six sides, the corner digging into his hip.

“It’s time for me to go home.”

Before she can reply, because he has to say this now, now or never –

“Rohka, I –“ He takes her hand gently, the brine of the bay slick between them. “The day I met you in the Mystic Eye. You might have told me I was going to die that afternoon, read the most horrific fortune and everything I didn’t want to hear, and still I would have wanted to see you again, and keep seeing you. If Zeltiva isn’t exactly what you were looking for either, I think - we keep finding each other. So let’s stop finding, let’s just… always be. Come with me to Sunberth. You can set up another shop, or do something else entirely. It doesn’t matter to me. I’ll take care of everything.”

I know I’m not Rhysol, he thinks, remembering that day in the temple in Ravok before their mission. But will you follow me all the same?

Ledger: Scarf 1 SM x Ramie 1.75 = -1.75 SM

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